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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28064490">Of All the Things My Hands Have Held (the Best by Far Is You)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lliyk/pseuds/Lliyk'>Lliyk</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Confessions, Drabble Collection, Drama, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gift Exchange, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, Love, POV Aang (Avatar), POV Katara (Avatar), POV Zuko (Avatar), Pining, Post-Break Up, Post-Canon, Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:42:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,630</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28064490</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lliyk/pseuds/Lliyk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lasting peace is never without price. For <a href="https://zutaraangtastic.tumblr.com/post/633594653876371456/">Zutaraang Holiday Exchange</a>.</p><blockquote>
  <p><i>Every morning when she rises to see Zuko’s pallid tones as Agni yawns over the horizon; instead she will look and see, and see </i>also<i> pale tan, and interrupted lines of sky blue. They glisten faintly from work under the early winter sun, and while they spar in silence, their bending — harsh enough to rattle her walls, and hot enough to evoke a hurried breath of snow — is as loud as any spat.</i></p>
  <p>
    <i>She wonders what they fight over. Never, does she ask.</i>
  </p>
  <p>
    <i>Neither are as loud as her, when she rises and looks away.</i>
  </p>
</blockquote>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aang &amp; Zuko (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar), Aang/Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Aang.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaystrifes/gifts">jaystrifes</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>12 drabbles for 12 days of happy holidays! hope you enjoy the story. comments are fuel ♡*:･ﾟ✧</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Do you need some time to think it over?”</p><p>Aang stares at his friends. </p><p>“Yeah,” he says quietly, rising silently to his feet on an absent stream of air. “yeah, I need time to...”</p><p>Zuko shares a look with Katara, and Aang hates the way he can’t read the words that pass between them anymore. Aang closes his eyes and snaps his glider open with every intention of taking flight, but he’s stopped by cool hands on his bare shoulder; the whisper of his name and warmth at his side.</p><p>Aang allows the embrace, memorizing the way Zuko folds over both him and Katara, and the way Katara fits her nose against the crook of his neck. A sob sticks painfully in his throat when they both land kisses on his face. In the next second he’s gone — catching a current and riding it blindly. </p><p>Selfishly, or perhaps foolishly, a single moment later he circles back in the other direction. Just to see if they’re watching the sky for him.</p><p>He should not be surprised that they are.</p><p>They’re his friends, after all.</p><p>Zuko raises his hand — greeting or goodbye, or maybe even both — and from his height he can see that Katara is tucked tightly into his hold. Her shoulders are shaking, and it does not take three years of knowing her — of <em> loving </em> her — to know that she is crying.</p><p>It hurts too much.</p><p>Aang closes his glider and falls into the ocean.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Katara.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It is said that the Fire Lady never stopped loving the Avatar. Those who dare to ask will find this saying to be irrevocably true in their own way.</p><p>“He’s a good man,” Fire Lady Katara says, despite the fact that she has not seen — nor heard — of the Avatar in the last seven years. “he is a man who does right, not a man who insists on <em> being </em> right. He is our balance, and he is more than I ever hoped for this world.”</p><p>Her words are marked for history books and magazines, proud and bold and unvarying across mediums. Her belief in the Avatar is palpable from the page, and her message carries a light into the heart of her peoples and the world across. Fire Lady Katara, Master Waterbender, Sifu of the Avatar, will sing the Avatar’s praise to her grave, this everyone knows.</p><p>What the people don’t know is how she curses the Avatar — how she curses <em> Aang</em>, with pain and spit and tears — for taking up meetings with her husband and not her. The people do not know, and will never know, the ore of bitterness she carries behind her ribs because <em> she </em> has not seen, nor heard, of the Avatar in seven years. They do not know that she whittles scraps of information about him from the Fire Lord in the safety of their rooms. They do not know that she holds these scraps dear, and at once, wishes she could drown them away and just <em> forget</em>.</p><p>The Avatar has abandoned the Fire Lady.</p><p>Spring marks the eighth year of silence and scraps.</p><p>The Fire Lady abandons hope for the Avatar.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Zuko.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“How’s Katara?”</p><p>The Fire Lord focuses in silence on the array of missives laid out before them on the old war-table. The Avatar asks him the same question four times a year, once every season, and still his answer is the same:</p><p>“Ask her yourself.”</p><p>It will be seven years, next spring, since the Fire Lord shot lightning at the Avatar in a fit of unchecked confusion and rage. It will be nine years, next spring, since the Avatar abandoned the Fire Lady.</p><p><em> “She cries over you,” </em> Zuko had screamed. His fingers were still heavy with static, then; ready to draw white in the air all over, because for two years he had tried everything he knew in order to make her happy. To make her <em> his</em>. <em> “she cries and cries and </em> begs <em> me to bring her to you!” </em></p><p><em> “I can’t, Zuko,” </em> Aang had answered. He’d caught the stream of electricity and shot it right back, hands white and teeth bared.<em> “it hurts too much!” </em></p><p>Every year the words are the exact same. Zuko tells himself that he is not surprised anymore at the answer. He tells himself that it doesn’t send angry electricity crackling behind the starburst shape of his scar anymore; that it <em> doesn't </em> hurt; that it doesn’t open the maw of the visceral need to <em> eradicate </em> in the name of love.</p><p>The Fire Lord tells himself that he has no need to defend the honor of his Lady, for her honor was never once in jeopardy.</p><p>“I can’t, Zuko,” the Avatar says, and The Fire Lord tells himself that it doesn’t hurt. “not this time.”</p><p>Zuko looks up from the pile of paperwork. For the first time in a long time, Aang looks back at him.</p><p><em> Not this time</em>.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>
  <span class="small"><br/>    <span class="small">HAHDKSKBDJ DID NOT MEAN TO POST THIS CVDBJXKD BUT SINCE I DID.... LMAO BRUH I NEED SLEEP</span><br/>  </span>
</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Aang.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It's like waking from the ice all over again, when he sees her.</p><p>Winter in the Fire Nation is just shy of genuine cold. Nobility and common folk alike dress in longer robes and thicker fabrics, trading away their open-cuts and sandals for soled shoes and uninterrupted swaths of robe. Even the Fire Lord can be seen sitting comfortably in the full weight of his regalia during the winter months.</p><p>Fire Lady Katara does no such thing.</p><p>She dresses as if summer has never left, taut skin and toned muscle exposed for any to glimpse. Her skirts are slit and her sleeves are billowy, her shoulders exposed and the hems of her tops cropped well above her navel. It shocks Aang to see her like that, dressed in reds with a crown of fire nestled into the elaborate swoop of her blue-beaded braids. His breath of wind escapes him and his breath of fire skitters out immediately after in a plume of blue sparks. Only his breath of snow remains, numbing his tongue and frosting the air around his mouth.</p><p>Aang mourns — his loss; his lack there of; and it <em>burns</em> — as he watches her glide across the palace yard with the grace of a Master, a grace he cannot possibly dream to come by in her element the way she does. Her aura is lush and coral. She is beautiful, and he is as enraptured as the boy he’s always been.</p><p>Katara spots him across the courtyard then. He knows she does by the way her eyes widen, by the way her hands lift just so from the comfort of her billowy sleeves as if to reach out in embrace; and as quickly as it happens it’s over. </p><p>Katara does not greet him, and neither does the Fire Lady.</p><p>Aang mourns. Next to him, the Fire Lord is peppered with kisses.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Katara.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Avatar is in her home.</p><p>Katara discovers this when the head of staff asks after her wishes for the apparent preparations to be made to the Avatar’s Chamber in the Royal Apartments. The Avatar’s Chamber has been unused since before the death of Roku, the Fire Lady knows, and Katara is silent for nearly a full minute before gracing the staff with her yield. “As you see fit.” The Fire Lady says. “What of my husband?”</p><p>“With the Avatar, Lady,” she is told, “on the palace steps awaiting your welcome as always,” and her breath leaves her lungs when she sees them standing together; the Fire Lord and the Avatar, waiting; yearning gray and loving gold tracking her every step forward. Something in her chest slides very decidedly into place, then, but it is the tight pain of an age old scream in the back of her mouth that she feels the most.</p><p>
  <em> How could you?  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I waited for you. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I thought you loved me.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I thought you loved me. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I thought you loved me. </em>
</p><p>She cannot look at him. Sorrow yawns in her chest, heavier than even the deepest basins of her anger. </p><p>Ahead of her, Zuko — <em> always </em> Zuko — curves his mouth into the tiniest — the saddest — of private smiles. Her husband opens his arms to her, and without hesitation she goes. Katara is relieved to see him well at home, where she can reach and be met with ready warmth. She dons pecks of adoration on him. His brow, his cheek, his jaw; the places La keeps for guidance, protection, and strength.</p><p>The uninterrupted cadence of the winter wind is deafening. </p><p>“I missed you, My Lord.” She says it with the full weight of her heart, even as it splits at the carefully sewn seams of gold that have been holding it in one piece. Zuko captures her mouth in a tender kiss, his hands cupping her face and his sigh of content woefully unabashed.</p><p>“And I you,” he murmurs.</p><p>The wind is deafening. She cannot look.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Zuko.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“I think I’m ready,” Katara had told him in the days before his seasonal meeting with the Avatar. “I’m sorry it took me so long, Zuko. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but I’m ready now. I love you and I <em> want </em> this.”</p><p>Elation, he’d found, tasted as pure as lightning. Felt like it, too, and lasted twice as long. Eight years, he’d waited to hear those words. </p><p>But then the Fire Lord meets with the Avatar, only to find that Aang is in his place. “I think I’m ready,” Aang says, and <em>eight years</em>, Zuko has waited to hear those words. “Can I stay?”</p><p>His elation quickly morphs into bitterness, thick on his tongue and preventing him from unlocking his jaw enough to speak. Bitterness tastes an awful lot like the dregs of hatred, and Zuko is careful to keep the word <em> hate </em> far from his mouth no matter how often it dares to flit across his mind. <em> Why now? </em> He wants to scream. “Of course,” is what he says instead, and at the palace steps his bitterness turns into a terrible fear; fear that despite their romance in recent years, she will take but a single look and promptly forget. Fear that she will take but a single look, and then promptly forget that only days ago she’d agreed to be the mother of his children.</p><p>Katara does not look at all. Zuko holds her close and washes away his fear with the taste of her. He is the one holding the glass goblet, brimming with years worth of inconsolable tears and reflecting the horror of empty ocean eyes. <em> He </em> is the one that put <em> happy </em> back where it belongs.</p><p>The winter winds howl, and its heartbreak falls on deaf ears.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Aang.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Katara won’t see him, and neither will the Fire Lady. A tumulus wind gathers in his lungs as he stands outside of her office doors — as he feels her presence lingering, just on the other side — and for the longest of breaths he wonders if this is how she felt, this raw rejection and despondency; this... <em> new </em>pain. If the simmering gag of anger had gripped her, too.</p><p>The creep of loneliness.</p><p>But he will not know, and it feels as if he never will, now. He is not <em> permitted</em>, as her assistant so primly told him.</p><p>He seeks out Zuko.</p><p>“Why won’t she see me?”</p><p>“What did you expect?” <em> Fire Lord </em> rolls off of Zuko in searing waves. Seemingly, he has been waiting on this, because before Aang can think to answer he continues right on, “no, <em> tell </em> me. I want to know. She <em>waited</em>, and you — what did you expect? You would not even <em> see </em> her—”</p><p>“I <em> couldn’t </em> see her. You know this.” Aang snaps quietly, vehement in his defense — the emotions are quick to come. Too often, they have argued this argument. “I just needed time! Why is that so <em> wrong</em>?”</p><p>“What about this situation is not clicking for you, Aang?” </p><p>His teeth grind together. Zuko silences, gathering himself or expecting an answer, but Aang sees a cold fury behind his honeyed glare, a fury he cannot understand next to his own, and he finds that all he can be is silent, too. Zuko looks away and sucks in a sharp breath; the words that follow — eight years, Aang has listened to them. </p><p>“It’s not fair for you to expect anyone to wait around for you forever.”</p><p><em> Katara isn’t anyone</em>, Aang wants to snap back, but then a sort of clarity settles, both sickening and a sense of cool relief. </p><p>Only now does he hear.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Katara.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Avatar does not try to speak with her after the first time. “Send him away, Yona,” she’d told her assistant, and she had not bothered to pass more than a glance at the figure that stood in her door. “I have no need nor desire to exchange words with The Avatar.”</p><p>Gray eyes, angry and sad, have plagued her thoughts since. </p><p><em> How could you </em> becomes <em> how dare you</em>, and then stubbornly it fades to a black nothing, like the ocean when, when on bad days she needs to sink. Cold and detached. Peaceful, almost.</p><p><em>“</em>Growth,” Zuko says to her.</p><p><em>“</em>Maybe,” she says back.</p><p>The Avatar does not try to speak with her after the first time, but those eyes... They are everywhere. Those eyes, and the man — <em> man</em>, yes, <em> man</em>; tall and broad and sure footed when he walks, she’s seen as such without her own consent — in her halls, at her tables, in her gardens, at her beaches. Above her city streets. Silent yet sentry, and she, just so, if not more, at every chance of ignorance. She thought that she could not look, no, but as the weeks crawl by finding solace for confusion in her husband’s arms at every turn erodes into the undeniable curiosity of her nature.</p><p>So, Katara looks. Every morning when she rises to see Zuko’s pallid tones as Agni yawns over the horizon; instead she will look and see, and see <em> also </em>pale tan, and interrupted lines of sky blue. They glisten faintly from work under the early winter sun, and while they spar in silence, their bending — harsh enough to rattle her walls, and hot enough to evoke a hurried breath of snow — is as loud as any spat.</p><p>She wonders what they fight over. Never, does she ask.</p><p>Neither are as loud as her, when she rises and looks away.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Zuko.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><em>“You </em>don’t<em> understand</em>, <em> Zuko. I cannot</em> <em>let her go. I never, ever have.” </em></p><p>Aang had protested simply — always what he <em> will not</em>, never what he is <em> willing </em> — but the weight of his conviction, underlined with secrecy, had struck an identical chord in the depth of his being. In less than seconds Zuko had found himself exhausted.</p><p>He’s <em>sure</em> heunderstood<em>.</em></p><p><em>“Fine, Aang.” </em> He told him. Just as sadly, just as pained, he had left him with a not-so-simple answer. <em> “But... she needs time.”  </em></p><p><em> So do I </em> did not have to be said. Angry and sad, Aang’s gray gaze had gone dark. Zuko shuts his eyes against the memory and focuses his mind on the warmth of the woman occupying his lap, her breathing, slow and warm against his throat. His sentiments shift swiftly from torpidity to ardor. “Zuko,” she whispers, and he sighs in content, never tired of the sound. “I want to speak with him.”</p><p>He traces his fingers in the patterned brushstrokes for <em> possession </em> along her hip, flattens his palm further down over the swell of her thigh. His hand follows the line of her, where her knee hooks over his waist, and to his infinite and utter delight, gooseflesh follows. Zuko runs his touch in the way from which it came, smoothing away the word because he knows it could never stay.</p><p><em> Theirs</em>, not <em> his</em>, so often he needs to remind himself.</p><p><em>Fine</em>.</p><p>... Fine.</p><p>“As you wish it,” and in the next swipe of his fingers he writes <em> possessor </em> there instead. “for you, Katara, I can deny not a thing.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Aang.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Fire Lady meets his gaze. Like water at her whim he trickles into her gravity, and the openness of Sahasrara taunts him, weak and false with his unbidden enlightenment.</p><p>Silently, so silently, Aang gives thanks to Ozai.</p><p>Under the fast eve of winter, they stand in the courtyard nestled above the cliffs. Below them the sea roars, its crash against the bluff as loud and as often as the beat of his racing heart. Weeks had turned into months, in which his spirit sure frayed. The hurt had bled out of him with the shifting of rock at hand; the anger, bright and hot, since dulled against another’s — at brilliant blue, watching him from high in the balconies. He eyes the glint of curvaceous gold atop the root of his endless ache — his sad, his angry, his hurt, his <em> happy</em>. The Fire Lady stops at the edge of walled rock, and when she looks at him she is <em> Katara</em>, first he’s seen.</p><p>“Speak,” she shakes, from her voice down to her fingers. In her tone, in her cadence, is a Katara that he does not know. “<em>speak</em>, and make it worthy.”</p><p>Aang feels his lungs seize; every word he has ever tucked away to give her dissolving on the back of his tongue. Ramblings or sentences carefully crafted, anecdotes that had fueled the flames that flicker from the palms of his hands, suddenly, glaringly, inexplicable and foolish.</p><p>Below them the sea roars.</p><p>He stands before her in silence — eyes pricking wet at the storm in that ocean gaze. There is no excuse worthy of the pain he sees there, and yet excuses are all he is able to proclaim.</p><p>This he owes her. Aang opens his mouth and waters the lawn at their feet with the streams of his shame.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Katara.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <span class="small">
    <br/>
    <span class="small">me, a fool, definitely forgot to post.</span>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <br/>
</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>From Aang’s confession, conclusive and resounding with the echo of his cry, she hates how easily a seed has grown.</p><p>
  <em> “Of all the things my hands have held, the best by far is you.” </em>
</p><p>The ice in her melts. Zuko wipes away the tears, and she mourns in his embrace.</p><p>“How much time?” He asks her, and her eyes wet again, all of his tenderness — his patience, his care, his kindness, his love — he thinks it was given for naught. She can see it in the glaze of his darkened amber stare, the rift between <em> him </em> and the crown on his head becoming imperceptible with each passing second. Katara tells him <em> none</em>, despite how it hurts — despite what she wants, or what she thought that she would — but she says: “Zuko, <em> none</em>,” and the uncertainty in the set of his brow eats her alive.</p><p>“He missed out on the person that I am — was. I am only so sad that he will never get to see.” Her voice is a shaky whisper, a grin just as wavering. “Being a parent changes <em> everything</em>, Zuko.”</p><p>The hand on her hip flexes. Amber brightens to gold. “You—”</p><p>“We.”</p><p>“But Aang—”</p><p>“Someday.” And with this, she sees it, that flicker of a thing that had come and gone so quickly: the Fire Lord and the Avatar, waiting, tracking her every step forward, only now she can <em> feel</em>; weight heavy in her belly, and a small hand in hers. “Zuko, <em> someday</em>.”</p><p>His palm finds her stomach. It is her turn to wipe away the tears.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Zuko.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <span class="small">
    <br/>
    <span class="small">ok this one fought with me bc.... <i>endings</i>... and i was super tempted to just be like ykw fuck it WRITE A WHOLE 10K ONE SHOT ABT ZUTARAANG FINDING ONE ANOTHER AGAIN but then i smoked and now we’re good lol.</span>
    <br/>
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</p><p> </p><p>thanks for reading. ♡</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“How’s Katara?”</p><p>Zuko smiles behind his outstretched hand. It’s been two days, and they still have not alerted the Sages. <em>An heir</em>... <em>His</em> heir. The world will cheer, to see the promise of their marriage finally fulfilled. Zuko is sure that none will be as loud as he. Elation, he finds, tastes as pure as lightning.</p><p>Zuko tosses the bolt right back, grinning into the blue that still haunts his dreams. “Ask her yourself!”</p><p>“I have a feeling she’s hiding,” Aang shouts. The spider web of blue turns pure white in his hands, and it thunders across the winter sky as he arcs and directs gracefully towards the rising sun. “not that I—”</p><p>“Blame me?” Zuko snaps his gaze to the balcony high above at the sound of his wife’s voice carrying through the yard. She stands at the rail, surely bare under the swath of Zuko’s robe. “Funny how that works.”</p><p>From the corner of his gaze, Zuko sees Aang bow at the waist. “Forgive me,” is all he says.</p><p>“I might.” Katara shrugs. Zuko’s heart skips as Aang lets out a mirthless chuckle. Just as bright ocean eyes shift to lock with his, beams of bright sunlight dance enchantingly over her frame. In seconds she is washed in brilliant tones of gold, her sleep-wild mane a firefly halo that only adds to her celestial visage. “Good morning, My Lord. What <em> are </em> we going to do with him?”</p><p>“My Lady,” warmth unrelated to Agni’s wide yawn flushes immediately through Zuko’s being. His answer is automatic. “I will do whatever you ask.”</p><p>“Standing <em> right </em> here,” Aang murmurs. Zuko ignores him and is all too glad for it. Katara’s face splits into a beautiful smile, full of love and something quite coy. From his side he hears Aang’s breath hitch. “I <em> ask </em> that you return to bed to enjoy breakfast with me, My Lord,” she calls down, turning to slip back inside. “send him away.”</p><p>“Avatar Aang,” Zuko only drops his gaze once he cannot see her. “the Fire Lady—”</p><p>“I <em> heard</em>.” <em> Snap</em>, and a flutter, and the wingspan of Aang’s glider circles high through the air. There’s lingering hurt underlining his casual tone, and at this Zuko pauses. “You don’t have to repeat it.”</p><p>“She will forgive you,” Zuko sighs.</p><p>“Yeah...” Aang lifts toward the sky with a cirrus of air from underfoot. “She might.”</p><p>In a hair’s breadth he is gone, a citrine blur against the endless blue sky. Zuko starts up the courtyard steps. He will never see how Aang closes his glider and falls into the ocean.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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